(Following is the full text of a Letter to the Editor of Asia Times in response to an article appearing in the March 16, 2009 edition of its online edition. The article, by W. Joseph Stroupe is titled "The not-so-safe haven". FYI The game that has been played by US--and now most Western financial elites because their fortunes are LITERALLY bound to that of the US dollar in which those fortunes are reckoned--was described almost 36 years ago in a book by Dr. Michael Hudson,http://michael-hudson.com, titled "Super Imperialism")

It would appear that even Mr. Stroupe has a ways to go before he is willing "to come fully to grips with the stark truth" about "the predicament facing the US dollar." Stroupe says "Like it or not, the US dollar still constitutes the de facto central framework of the present global financial order - the dollar is its fundamental support structure, much like the steel framework that supported the Twin Towers in New York." Mr. Stroupe, like the steel framework of the Twin Towers, the dollar framework of the international monetary system has been destroyed (and melted down in China.) Does Mr. Stroupe really believe that the American people, already impoverished by decades of predatory rule by its financial elite, would stand passively out of the way while the rest of the world collects its debts? Even if the phenomenal passivity of the US public held, how would the repossession be accomplished? All those empty container ships returning from US ports wouldn't be enough to scrape clean what remains of this country's once abundant natural resources and anything else that could be disassembled and carted away. The US may be $1 trillion or so in hock to China but that's no excuse to keep throwing good money after bad, like Europe and Japan did when Nixon acknowledged US bankruptcy in 1973 and dared the world to do something about it. I have no idea how much it is all worth but unlike the rest of the world China appears to be in a position to get something out of its deadbeat debtor. In blatant violation of the time-honored principles of imperialism, the US financial elite decided to buy from rather than sell to its colonies. So it equipped China with the factories to make everything that used to require expensive, profit-sapping Western labor. More important, it provided the Chinese people with the skills to run those factories and make them produce something else if China decides she wants something besides plasma TVs. Seize the factories! Like Castro, you could offer to pay for them at values declared on the previous year's corporate income tax forms. The REAL American government isn't going to like that of course. But that government couldn't even pull off a successful invasion of a tiny country 90 miles from its shores. As far as the American people are concerned, as long as Chinese owners treat them no worse than their own ruling class has treated them, they are unlikely to care who owns what. Who knows? China might even be able to kid the kidders. Offer to buy the factories and their distribution channels at "full value." If they are not for sale at under $1 trillion someone is not bargaining in good faith. Perhaps the members of the American kleptocracy who get a little slice of China's $1 trillion US dollars will actually believe the money is worth something.

A word of caution--The weapons of mass deception and destruction developed during the decades-long struggle against godless Russians and Chinese probably still work well enough to cause a lot of trouble. Some degree of enlightened self-interest is called for--for example, some kind of reverse Marshall Plan to give the American people at least enough tools to feed themselves and stay home.